1.1mil. Premises Said To Be Ready As FttN Overtakes FttP

Just one year after NBN Co announced a move to fibre-to-the-node (FttN) technology, rather than the more expensive and more difficult to rollout fibre-to-the-premises (FttP), FttN has overtaken the fibre-to-the-premises footprint, the company says.

It claims to have in one year established more than one million FttN connections ready for service.

One year after the start NBN Co says its FttN/B network stands at 1,135,000 premises ready to connect ( or19 per cent of the technology’s proposed service area). In comparison, the FttP network reaches 1,117,000 premises, despite being under construction since 2010.

NBN Co adds: “It has taken more than five years to make one million premises serviceable over NBN’s all-fibre architecture and costs the company $4400 per premises. That cost compares to less than $2200 per premises to connect with FttN/B.”

Not everyone thinks this is what Australia deserves. Senior Telstra executive Mark Chapman told an HP launch event last week he wished NBN Co had persisted with an all-fibre infrastructure rollout.

“A full fibre-to-the-premise rollout matters to me as an individual, but also to me as a member of a society and an economy that actually should be proud of the technical innovation we deliver,” he said.